Abstract
The online world mostly appears as a space of convenient consumption of cultural goods, but at the same time, there is something unsettlingly anarchic about it. It can be a source of both relaxation and anxiety. So when Powers and Jablonski suggest that not only is there a cyber war going on, but that the real war for the Internet is not even what we might think it to be, their argument has an intuitive appeal.
According to them, cyber war is usually understood as a conflict between the “internet freedom” agenda, as elaborated by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and the cause of “information sovereignty,” promoted by governments such as that of China. In reality, it is not a war to defend freedom of expression online, but rather, “a competition among different political economies of the information society” (p. 203), and that both agendas constitute attempts to legitimate geopolitical interests.
On one side, less industrialized, and less democratic, states use arguments about “information sovereignty” to legitimize their powers of online censorship. This is uncontroversial, and is discussed in only the sixth of seven chapters. But interestingly, we learn that some of these governments are developing “intranets”—Internet infrastructure within their borders, without full connectivity with the rest of the Internet—to exercise greater political control over communications among their populations.
The other side of the cyber war, with which the bulk of the book is concerned in the other five main chapters, features prominently the US promotion of “internet freedom” as a key foreign policy pillar. This agenda is designed, not to expand global freedom of expression, but rather to protect the economic and political interests of Western countries.
These chapters provide evidence of close connections between the US state apparatus and the monopolistic corporations that dominate the US Internet industry. They show that state policy has long been crucial to the establishment of the global power of US communications industries, and how in recent decades this has fostered, through the involvement of the Pentagon in the development of the Internet, the creation of an “information industrial complex.” The links between major corporations such as Google and the intelligence apparatus of the US state, through entities like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)–controlled venture capital firm In-Q-Tel, are detailed in a well-researched and information-rich chapter. The details of the imperial reach of Google across information industries are also valuable.
Perhaps the most significant chapter is the fourth, which discusses the United States’ favored “multistakeholder” approach to global Internet governance; this approach involves granting decision-making power to private organizations such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The chapter provides valuable information about the depth of the connections between those organizations and the private Internet industry. Also of great interest is the chapter on the economics of international connectivity; the exploitative nature of the financial arrangements between less industrialized economies and global service provides should be better known.
But the connections between these interesting and informative case studies and their conclusion about the “internet freedom” agenda need careful consideration. That the US state is involved in the operation and development of the Internet, or that corporations profit from expanded access to the Internet around the world, does not demonstrate that this policy agenda does not promote freedom of expression. The construction by the United States of its own secure intranet for governmental purposes, for instance, should not be compared, as it is here, to China’s Great Firewall. There is no obvious reason that the Internet industry’s ability to earn profits and operate in a market is inconsistent with “internet freedom.” To suggest that this agenda is only about economic interests rather than freedom is unwarranted. What would be required is some evidence that this agenda violates some people’s freedom of expression. Such evidence is not provided.
Even in the case of the lower income countries paying exorbitant prices to access the Internet, they can still be said to benefit. The structure of connection costs might privilege global capital, but it would be difficult to argue that these exploitative arrangements don’t also enhance the freedom to communicate in places like Africa.
Perhaps most illuminating in this sense is the seventh chapter, on Internet freedom and surveillance. While the National Security Agency’s (NSA) criminal activity violating the privacy of US citizens is well known, their chapter provides important context and background as well. Particularly, they critique the “end of anonymity” implied by the pervasive tracking of Internet users, not only in the United States but around the world. Certainly, anonymity is an important value; those who fear repercussions from a coercive state for expressing their political opinions depend on it. More analysis of this question is certainly welcome.
But anonymity is not identical to freedom of expression. The arguments made in this chapter to connect these concepts rely on comparisons with earlier historical eras, and with less industrialized countries where freedom of expression is not legally protected. It is not clear that in contemporary liberal democracies anonymity is an essential condition for freedom of expression. At the very least, we could easily identify dissidents who exercise speech rights without anonymity, including many Internet users in the United States. The relation between surveillance and freedom of speech is not as straightforwardly oppositional as is supposed, making the critique of the “internet freedom” agenda less powerful.
To argue that the policy agenda of Internet freedom does not promote freedom of speech because it supports corporate interests requires more direct evidence. Reference could be made to the involvement of Western technology firms in operating Internet filtering technology used by less democratic regimes (Rhoads and Chao, 2009), or to Yahoo’s cooperation with Chinese authorities in the suppression of dissent by its users (BBC News, 2009), but these kinds of information are lacking. Those not already convinced that there is a contradiction between corporate interests and democracy are unlikely to find much of this book surprising or important.
Those who take a more critical approach to “the political economy of internet freedom,” for whom the book is more likely intended, might also be disappointed. Despite the authors’ claim to draw on the work of Vincent Mosco and Daniel Schiller, there is surprisingly little actual argument against the agenda that it identifies as its subject. In the absence of more pointed critique, it is difficult to know why we should rethink which side we might be on in the real cyber war.